Patriot Manufacturers Believe That Ukraine Will Be Able To Produce Better And Cheaper Missiles If The License Is Transferred

The real reason for the rejection lies in potential competition.

The American manufacturers of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems—Raytheon and Lockheed Martin—oppose granting Ukraine a license to produce interceptor missiles, according to The Atlantic a source familiar with the matter.

According to the source, the companies officially cite concerns about “intellectual property theft and technology transfer” as the reason for their opposition to such a move. However, the real reason lies in potential competition.

“They’re worried that the Ukrainians will find a way to improve the Patriot and then produce them on a large scale faster and for much less money than existing production lines in the U.S. can,” the source told the publication. At the same time, granting a license to produce the missiles would make Washington both a guarantor of Ukraine’s security and a beneficiary of its manufacturing capacity, since Kyiv would be able to send surplus missiles to the U.S., notes The Atlantic. At the same time, even if Washington allows Kyiv to produce ammunition on its own, it will take “years” to establish large-scale production, the publication concluded.

In early July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, requested that Kyiv be granted a license to produce interceptor missiles for the Patriot system. The White House chief promised to grant the Ukrainian leader’s request but later backed away from it. According to him, “it’s difficult to hand over such technology,” since “those to whom you transfer it may one day turn against you.” “We must be very careful. We must safeguard this,” the U.S. president explained.

Despite this, according to Reuters sources, the U.S. continues to consider options for granting Kyiv a license. Among them is allowing Ukraine to independently manufacture missile components, which would then be assembled into finished munitions in Germany. The possibility of granting Kyiv a license to produce a cheaper version of the PAC-3 Adapted Capability Effector (ACE) missile is also being explored.

Patriot interceptor missiles are considered one of Ukraine’s key defenses against Russian ballistic missiles. According to Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ stockpiles of these missiles are at a critically low level. He also noted that ammunition deliveries from Western partners in the first half of 2026 had fallen by two-thirds compared to the same period the previous year. At the same time, Zelenskyy emphasized that “our partners do have missiles.”

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